Notting Hill Race Riots of 1958: Documents unsealed

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2002/aug/24/artsandhumanities.nottinghillcarnival2002

Lucy Negro, prostitute: The Dark-Lady of Shakespeare's sonnets

Some black women worked alongside their white counterparts as prostitutes, especially in Southwark, & in the brothel area of Turnmill Street in Clerkenwell. Here Lucy Negro, a former dancer in the Queen's service, ran an establishment patronised by noblemen & lawyers. Her area of London was notorious. "Pray enquire after & secure my negress: she is certainly at The Swan, a Dane's beershop in Turnmil Street," wrote one Denis Edwards in 1602. Shakespeare's acquaintance, the poet John Weaver, wrote of a woman whose face was "pure black as Ebonie, jet blacke".

Dark Lady' of Shakespeare's sonnets was a London prostitute called Lucy Negro, a dark-skinned madam who ran a licentious house (brothel) in Clerkenwell, north-east London. aka Black Luce, she was 'an arrant whore & a bawde’, catering for everyone from ‘ingraunts’ (immigrants) to ‘welthyemen’ & the aristocracy.' Yet she Inspired many of Bard's sonnets 127 to 152. The sonnets give few details describing her, apart from her dark eyes, hair & complexion, with hints that she was married. The Bard imagines an unidentified woman - known as the 'Dark Lady' but not actually named by him in that way - in an adulterous sexual relationship. She is the inspiration for many of the sonnets 127 to 152. She is 'my female evil' & 'my bad angel' in sonnet 144.

This identity was tentatively suggested in the 1930s. in August 2012 Dr Salkeld revealed public records that convinced him. Dr Salkeld discovered part of the evidence in the diary of Philip Henslowe.

The diary of Philip Henslowe, who built Rose Theatre, makes reference to Lucy Negro & her associate Gilbert East, another Clerkenwell brothel owner. They were both tenants of Henslowe, who had a rival acting company
Henslowe, who staged at least one of Shakespeare’s plays - Titus Andronicus - recorded 30 occasions when he dined with a Gilbert East who was also Henslowe’s bailiff for properties that he owned.

Apart from a midnight raid on her premises, Luce is not recorded as being arrested, though her girls were, & court documents include references to her successful brothel.

'Black Luce’s bad name was so well-known that anyone reading Shakespeare’s… sonnets… in the 1590s & early 1600s is likely to have brought her to mind, & Shakespeare must have known this.'

Lucy Negro also appears in a list of bawdy entertainments - the Gray's Inn Christmas entertainments of 1594 - & in a few plays & literary texts of the period.

'The stews were closed down by Henry VIII in 1546 & that drastically inhibited prostitution activity in the area. 'The majority of cases were north of The Thames, including Clerkenwell.'


Adapted from information found at: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2194176/Dark-Lady-Shakespeares-sonnets-finally-revealed-London-prostitute-called-Lucy-Negro.html

Conspiracy Theories & the death of African Leaders

It's rare for the leader of a country to die in office. Since 2008, it's happened 13 times worldwide - but 10 of those leaders have been African. Why is it so much more common in this one continent?

see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19356410

Yvonne Moore: black Mayor of Leamington Spa, Warks 2012

Yvonne Moore: former nurse turned Leamington councillor (from 2007) & Mayor from 2012
Born c. 1950, Moore was a school governor and a key member of the local neighbourhood watch scheme. She also worked closely with police officers as part of an Independent Advisory Group and has combined these roles with being a magistrate and a youth magistrate.
She stated: “Leamington is very much a town of two halves. There’s a top half, and a bottom half. Like everywhere else, we’ve got the rich bits and the poorer bits. I know I can’t do it on my own but I very much want to get Leamington to be a united place. One of the things I’m most keen to do is meet all the community groups, finding out what’s happening in the town and seeing how I can help these groups. I just want to be there for people in the town.”
She first arrived in the UK back in 1958. After starting work as a nurse, she moved to the area in 1962 where she has lived ever since and raised her family.
She was working as a nurse in the 1970s & was active in the Royal College of Nurses union, attending RCN conferences all over the country.
Later she agreed to help out the local Liberal Democrats, delivering their papers and attending their meetings. Eventually she stood as a candidate.

Adapted from information found at: www.voice-online.co.uk/article/leamingtons-new-mayor-proves-popular-choice

Black presence in Scandinavia

Country blues singer-guitarist Eric Bibb, who learned his craft in the coffee houses of Greenwich Village but has spent much of his career in Sweden and Finland, explains how jazz and blues players such as trumpeter Don Cherry - step-father of R&B star Neneh Cherry - built new lives in exile. Dexter Gordon - the star of '"Round Midnight" was one of the pioneers, settling in Copenhagen in the early 1960s.

see http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0184rg8

Facebook & Twitter

Didn't realise I was so neglectful of this site.




I blame Facebook & Twitter.



However this is a lot of Black British History on there. I'm following up new leads every day.

Social networking at its best!